Perhaps...

Thank you to the reader that left me this comment:

"Perhaps your reader was just concerned as to whether you had found a job or not and was revisiting your site in the hopes that you had......"

I'd like to think that is the case, but if it was, why not just pick up the phone or send an email that says, "I was just thinking of you, how is the job search going?" Perhaps the concern was mutual, why keep it one sided?

I have lots of guesses as to why, but I don't like assuming motivation without any solid evidence. Consider the conclusions you can come to when making assumptions: This weekend my stepdaughter asked me to help her wash her hair. When I reached for the shampoo, I saw that the bottle was empty and she had been using the little hotel trial size shampoo bottles that I collect on trips and put in a basket of toiletries for guests. Had she told me she was out of shampoo, I would have bought her a new regular size bottle. I told my husband that this is how I imagine wild stories begin... the next thing we know we'll hear through the grapevine some scandalous rumor that we're too cheap to even buy soap and shampoo for the kids and how we make them use hotel samples. I know that seems extreme, but you'd be amazed at the stories that you hear through neighbors and church gossip when blended families are involved.

Nonetheless, theories exist...

One person pointed out that blame is a coping mechanism and as the manager, I'm the most obvious candidate to blame. I can be that person if it helps someone recover but one would hope that eventually logic would rule, especially considering I was the first one to go.

One of my team members actually told me that another team member stabbed me in the back during her one-on-one interview with the consultant and she is now angry that things didn't turn out as she hoped. I prefer to think that I wouldn't have hired someone with that little business sense. But this is how those stories begin...

I even started to wonder if my former boss started making stories up after I called the police on him. I have no idea what his reaction was to that whole situation.

These are just theories though. All I know for a fact is that one employee met me for coffee after we were dismissed, we hugged and promised to keep in touch and he's obviously changed his mind.

The other employee was on vacation at the time and asked me not to contact her if anything major happened during her vacation. We had a simple miscommunication before she left. She completed an advisory which I published because I knew she wanted to do some follow-up announcements on it. As the department manager, I had always distributed all publications from my team (crediting the author, of course) and in this case I wanted to get it out quickly for her because of the high probability that significant changes would be distracting people later in the week. She wanted to be the one to publish it and became irate - the last thing she said to me was that I made us all "look like idiots." I asked her to stop in my office to discuss her reaction after she cooled down, but she left. We exchanged a few insincere words in the hall the next day, but she essentially avoided me and left for vacation. I chalked it up to the extreme pressure we were all under, but the situation left me in shock. I would just never speak to someone that way.

Her termination occurred the day she returned from vacation. I spoke with her husband to make sure she had my phone number and email address should she need anything because I didn't have her home contact information and their number is unlisted. Mainly, I wanted to let her know that I had samples of her writing if she needed it for interviews, that her severance package could be negotiated, and that if she was allowed to keep the airline tickets that had already been purchased for us to attend a technical conference, I would be happy to sign mine over so her and her husband could go somewhere.

My apologies for the long explanation, but I did appreciate the comment and wanted to provide some more background on the whole situation. As I said before, I don't mind who reads my blog. This stuff all happened three months ago and maybe reading my perception of the events is just interesting. My degree in psychology does result in me being curious about human behavior at times like this; however, it isn't something I'm going to dwell over. My new coworkers have been great, I'm happy to be at a new company and life goes on.